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Historical background of gender inequality
Gender equality statistics through history
Historical background of gender inequality
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Many parts of history show that the 1950’s was a time of great turbulence and unrest in both politics and social life. All this unrest was caused by major historical events, including the Red Scare/McCarthyism and the Cold War. However, although many aspects of life in the 50’s were in such disarray, gender roles were not one of those aspects. In fact, there was a very narrow, strict idea of what it meant to be a male and a female during this time. The following discusses what was considered proper gender roles in the 1950’s and how these roles vary compared to the gender roles portrayed in the 1955 movie, Rebel Without a Cause. Gender roles in the 1950’s are nothing like the ones we see in society today. To fully understand the differences of gender roles during that time period, you need to know exactly what they are. The definition of gender is “the state of being male or female” (The New International Webster’s Dictionary). The definitions of role are 1. The character played by an actor, 2. A part that someone or something has in a particular activity or situation, and 3. The part that someone has in a family, society, or other group (The New International Webster’s Dictionary). The particular definition of role that really fits in with the definition of gender role is “the part that someone has in a family, society, or other group”. This definition is the most accurate because gender roles are basically guidelines or behaviors for a particular gender that are deemed acceptable by society. Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w... ... middle of paper ... ...ay." Trinity College. Jack Dougherty, 2 May 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. “Gender.” The New International Webster’s Dictionary. 2002. Print Laski, Marghanita. “What Every Woman Knows by Now.” Women’s Magazines 1940-1960. Ed. Katherine E. Kurzman, Kate Sheehan Roach, and Stasia Zomkowski. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 1998. 242,243. Print. More, Elizabeth Singer. "“The Necessary Factfinding Has Only Just Begun”: Women, Social Science, And The Reinvention Of The “Working Mother” In The 1950s." Women's Studies (2011): 974-1005. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. Rebel Without a Cause. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Perf. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Jim Backus. Warner Bros., 1955. DVD. “Role.” The New International Webster’s Dictionary. 2002. Print. “When the Movies Moved to the Suburbs.” The New York Times. Janet Maslin, 29 Oct. 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
The Gender roles of the 1900s were strictly defined in society, providing rigid boundaries for human existence and expression. Men were envisioned dominant and aggressive, and women were submissive. Male aggression was demonstrated through the playing of sports (Becker et Schirp). Society determined the role of the woman was to be a wife and a mother with little individuality. Jennifer Gray states, “The hegemonic institution of nineteenth-century society required women to be objects in marriage and in motherhood, existing as vessels of maternity and sexuality with little opportunity for individuality” (53). Women’s roles were strictly determined and any deviation from these roles could be grounds for isolation.
The world was a very different place sixty years ago. The men came home from the war to take back the work force from the women and sent the women back into the home to follow traditional domestic roles. All aspects of life had to be cookie cutter perfect, to include the gender roles. The roles of both genders have been portrayed by the BBC Television show, Call the Midwife, as they use to be in the 1950’s. The men were the breadwinners of their family by working arduous hours, protect their family and home, and have zero contact with feminine things and activities; the women were expected to get married early, always look their best, and never indulge in their aspirations for a career outside of the home unless they were single.
The roles that men and women were expected to live up to would be called oppressive and offensive by today’s standards, but it was a very different world than the one we have become accustomed to in our time.
With the beginnings of the cold war the media and propaganda machine was instrumental in the idea of the nuclear family and how that made America and democracy superior to the “evils” of the Soviet Union and Communism; with this in mind the main goal of the 50’s women was to get married. The women of the time were becoming wives in their late teens and early twenties. Even if a women went to college it was assumed that she was there to meet her future husband. Generally a woman’s economic survival was dependent on men and employment opportunities were minimal.
“Gender” refers to the cultural construction of whether one is female, male, or something else (Kottak 2013: 209). Typically, based on your gender, you are culturally required to follow a particular gender norm, or gender role. Gender roles are the tasks and activities a culture assigns to the sexes (Kottak 213: 209). The tasks and activities assigned are based upon strongly, seized concepts about male and female characteristics, or gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes…are oversimplified but strongly upheld ideas about bout the characteristics of males and females (Kottak 2013: 209).
The social perception of women has drastically changed since the 1950’s. The social role of women during the 1950’s was restrictive and repressed in many ways. Society during that time placed high importance on expectations of behavior in the way women conducted themselves in home life as well as in public. At home the wife was tasked with the role of being an obedient wife, caring mother, and homemaker. Women publicly were expected to form groups and bond over tea with a slice of cake. All the while government was pushing this idealize roll for women in a society “dominated” by men. However, during this time a percentage of women were finding their way into the work force of men. “Women were searching their places in a society led by men;
During the 1950s, it was believed that creating a home and having children were one of the most important goals for most women. During their schooling years, most women attended college to get their "M.r.s." degree, or the reason most women went to college was to get married and not to earn a real degree (PBS.org, 2001, para. 3). Women also started working again, though they did not have equal benefits or pay to men. Women were also hired for jobs that tailored to their looks, not their skills (Coster, 2011, p. 35-36). They were also encouraged to have large families, but needed help when it came to managing their household. Hollywood created an image of an American mother who has a wholesome family that influenced the way women thought and behaved. Advertising and Hollywood created ideals for the perfect 1950s housewives that were unattainable. Television ads reinforced gender roles of women and the pressure of being the perfect mother and wife caused mental health issues for a lot of women during this time. During the 1950s, women had a part in education, the workforce, in the home, in television, and even in mental health that helped evolve the old 1950s mother to a new modern mother.
This demonstrates that women in the 1950s were not happy with being housewives, they wanted to do more as Friedan writes. Which implies that the image of being a happy housewife was not accurate because women were not satisfied with just doing the work at home they wanted to do more, they wanted to have an actual purpose in life not just clean and take care of their husband and kids.
One of the most popular products of the 1950’s had to offer was most definitely the television. At the start of this decade there was just about three million television owners. By the end of the decade there was about 55 million television owners. The average price for a television set was about 50 dollars in 1949 to about 200 dollars in 1953.television in the 1950’s really helped shape what people thought a perfect society should really look like. Programs during this time included a white father, mother, and children. That being said just shows what racism was like during this time as well. It's quite clear black people were not the idea of a perfect family. 1950’s television, just like 50's reality, had very strict gender roles. After the
Conformity was common among all ages in the 1950s. Men were expected to work and support their family financially, while women, even though some worked, were expected to cook, clean, and take care of the family. This is best shown within A & P when Sammy describes how the costumers, he referred to as “sheep”, pushed their carts down the aisles in the same flow of traffic every day. He even refers to them as “house slaves in pin curlers” (Updike 354).
Others did not have a choice because they were laid off. With the men back home and jobs no longer available to them, women returned to their prior position of homemaker. The baby boom of the 1950’s proved to be a pivotal moment for gender roles in American society as it pushed the last of the women back into the household. The idea that a woman could not work and be a good mother at the same time soon became the unquestioned truth. The nation no longer needed women but now their growing families did. As families began to grow and men brought home bigger paychecks, there was a shift from living in the cities to the suburbs. “Domestic and quiescent, they moved to the suburbs, created the baby boom, and forged family togetherness…the quintessential white middle-class housewives who stayed at home to rear children, clean house, and bake
In the 1950s, the stereotypical female was expected to fill a role that was awfully repressive and constrictive. Many standards were placed on women
What are gender roles? Where did they come from? Who decides which actions are masculine, and which ones are feminine? The short answer would be that gender roles are a byproduct of heteronormative thinking that has been passed down through countless generations of patriarchal society. When a young boy plays with tools or toy cars, he is performing his gender role in accordance with the Patriarchal society in which he lives, but if the same young boy were to play with dolls, he would be stepping outside of the social construct of heteronormative activities. Since the advent of queer film, more individuals are expressing themselves openly, creating a new norm. The movie ‘But I’m a cheerleader,’ is about a teenage girl, Megan. It is about discovering
Since the beginning of time, the perception of gender roles had always been a part of everyday life. In society today, gender role is viewed as a “set of societal norms [that dictate] what types of behavior are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable” [Wikipedia] based on somebody’s perceived or born gender. In the nineteenth century, a movement has abrupt that is the “advocacy of women 's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” [Google] known as feminism.Within America and Vietnam in the nineteenth and twenty-first century, gender role is not viewed as universal, but each country has a different set of behavior, belief, norm, and value when it comes to the role of male or female. How does
Gender roles seek to put a person into a mold of what someone else sees them to be. For example in "Keep Within Compass," it is obvious that a man drew the plate because the woman is depicted to be genteel, sedate, and almost air headed in appearance, with no voice of her own. This is a prime example of the despicable properties placed in gender roles. Girls cannot play football and guys cannot be cheerleaders. The gender roles are defining what is right and what is wrong within society. For example, in the "Keep Within Compass" plate, the woman is wrong if she does not conform to the ideal of society.